"Just Too Dirty"

"Politics as a career for college men" is a stock subject for freshman heelers to get signed articles on for undergraduate dailies. All freshman heelers were scooped by the April Forum, which contained a piece on "Young Men in Politics" by Connecticut's Governor Wilbur Lucius ("Uncle Toby") Cross, who used to be dean of Yale's graduate school. Are there any young men to compare with Thomas Jefferson (a William & Mary alumnus) or James Madison (Princeton) or Alexander Hamilton (Columbia), all of whom went early into public life? "There are some hopeful signs," said Governor Cross. "A number of gifted young college men, following the distinguished lead of Walter Lippmann, are exerting social and political pressure through editorial work in our dailies or weeklies. There is a sprinkling of them in our state legislatures and even in Congress.* ... The present situation is a still stronger challenge to robust American youth ... to take the initiative, to make up their minds what our democracy needs, and to use all their educational equipment and organizing powers to get it. ... I have no hesitation in saying to those who can stand a cold plunge: Come on in--the water's fine!"

Last fortnight the Yale Daily News politely declined Governor Cross's invitation. The News assured its readers that "the best men will stay out of politics. It's just too dirty.

"The most serious of menaces to American principles is the increasing abhorrence of educated young men for politics. Politics is no longer a decent profession. . . . When a government has fallen in the estimation of a people so that the finest and strongest people will not take part in it, that government is on the wane. The American Government is menaced by a very real, nation-wide disgust of this kind."

Other college dailies did not entirely agree with the News. Said the Dartmouth: "It is not politics . . . just some of the politicians. Some, not all." The Michigan Daily: "In general, we believe politics is too unremunerative as a profession to be a field for the college graduate. The general attitude is one of disinterestedness. . . ." The University of Rochester Campus: ". . . Rochester men do not agree with the Yale Daily News. . . . College men should not quit because the task appears difficult." The Penn State Collegian: ". . . Before the undergraduate gets too critical, he should attempt to clear up a bit in his own backyard. Some of the methods used to get votes by fraternity cliques in many colleges would put the average politician to shame." The Daily Princetonian: ". . . Most undergraduates here recognize that politics need cleaning up, and a reasonable number have the desire to help in person. . . ."

Princeton, like a few other U. S. colleges, demonstrates its desire to help. Since the turn of the century Yale, Harvard, Amherst and Stanford have given to the U. S. presidency their Alumni Taft, Roosevelt, Coolidge and Hoover. But Princeton gave its own President Wilson. There is at Princeton a Woodrow Wilson Democratic Club. Last week it opened its "Model Democratic National Convention," whose rules, procedure and skeleton body of 100 delegates resemble closely those of the real convention which meets in June. Last week Freshman Edward F. Pritchard delivered the keynote address. He eulogized Woodrow Wilson and also said: "In 1924 it was 'Keep Cool with Coolidge,' but now we literally freeze to death with Hoover." After the keynoting the convention elected its permanent chairman. Patly, conveniently Democratic is Otis Theodore Wingo Jr., junior. His late father was Arkansas' long-time Representative. His mother, Effie Gene Locke Wingo, succeeded to the seat (TIME, Nov. 10, 1930). Last week Chairman Wingo settled down importantly to explain procedures to his convened delegates, appointed ten committees. Next week Princeton's Convention will draft a platform, the week after nominate its candidates.

At Washington & Lee University this week is to open the fifth "Mock Democratic Convention," in which every student takes part. In 1908 the convention picked William Jennings Bryan in advance of the regular convention. Because the nomination of Wilson in 1916 was an assured fact, the convention was Republican, chose Charles Evans Hughes. No convention was held in 1920. In 1924 John William Davis (W. & L. trustee) was chosen; in 1928 Alfred Emanuel Smith. Only wrong guess was in 1912 when the convention chose Judson Harmon. But students claimed they would have picked Wilson had the faculty allowed them sufficient extra time to break a deadlock. W. & L. looks forward to its presidential bickerings because a university holiday is always declared.

*In U. S. politics are many able young college-trained men. Not a few inherit their politics from famed kinfolk. Conspicuous is David Sinton Ingalls, 33, Yale 1920, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aeronautics, grandnephew of the late William Howard Taft, who is now seeking to become Governor of Ohio. Robert Marion ("Bob") LaFollette, 37, fills his late father's seat in the Senate. He studied at the University of Wisconsin as did his brother Philip Fox LaFollette, 35, Governor of Wisconsin. Paul John Kvale, 36, who studied at the University of Chicago, Luther College and the University of Minnesota, succeeded his father as U. S. Representative from Minnesota. James Jeremiah ("Jerry") Wadsworth, 26, Yale 1927, son of the ex-Senator from New York, is now a New York Assemblyman. A candidate for the New York State Senate in 1930 was Alexander Hamilton, then 27, Harvard 1925, nephew of John Pierpont Morgan, great-great-grandson of the first Secretary of the Treasury. Frederic Rene Coudert Jr., 34, Columbia 1918, onetime assistant U. S. Attorney, ran for New York District Attorney in 1929. James Roosevelt, 25, onetime Harvard student, son of New York's Governor, campaigns for his father in Massachusetts, is pledged to him as a Democratic delegate in Chicago next June. No political family are the Vanderbilts, but William Henry Vanderbilt, 30, onetime Princeton student, is president of the Rhode Island Senate. Last week James Simpson Jr., 27, son of Marshall Field's board chairman, was nominated for Congress in the Illinois Republican primaries (see n. 19). Joseph Clark Baldwin III. 35, Harvard 1920, New York Alderman from the 15th ("Silk Stocking") District, constitutes a unique minority on the Tammany Board. With Lawyer Coudert (see above) and Assemblyman Abbot Low Moffat, 31, Harvard 1923, he leads the younger element in the State Republican Party. A new, popular member of the U. S. House of Representatives is Howard Malcolm ("Mac") Baldrige, 38, of Nebraska. Yale, 1918.

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